Grey MOTS Nioma Lap Steel

Here is this Nioma Lap Steel cleaned up from it's several years of storage, and it's original fiberboard case refurbished after many years of use protecting this steel guitar. The trim batting on these old fiberboard cases is what held their joints together, with no glue at all; And over the years the trim batting gets so worn that it isn't strong enough to hold the joints and even wears away leaving the weight of the guitar on the joints prone to tearing open the trim batting, even enough for the guitar to spill out while carrying or handling the case; So short of having a luggage shop remove and hand sew new trim batting onto the case (quite expensive), the next best thing is to glue the exposed joints together, fold open-trim batting back in place and glue it as well; A detailed and time consuming job that I like to do because it turns an old case back into service in a manner that looks original unless examined closely; An old case gets a new life that looks pretty darn good.

This is also a good place to mention the finish on the jack and volume control plates: I had previously thought that the very intricate and very appealing patterns were made by electric Eddy currents (aka Foucault currents) injected into the finish during application; But while using a large work magnifying glass to examine the jack and volume pot whose wiring harness was so tight that the jack and pots would only come out of their cavity about 1/2 inch, ...I discovered that the intricate pattern was actually either stamped or etched (likely using Eddy current) into the plates themselves, which transferred dimensionally into the finish painted over the plates. It's appearance is as though the designers / makers of this art deco steel guitar did so as a mark of art to make other intrument manufacturers and buyers wonder how in the world did they get that pattern into the jack, pot and pickup covers; Art Deco was a competition between designers during the period this guitar was made (likey during the early 1940s; The pot would not come out far enough to read any proprietary codes on the pot. A blown up poster of these parts in their present patina'ed condition would indeed be a VERY interesting study and presentation of fine work of Art.

The very best nexting and wiping material for guitars (imho) is used, washed / bleached baby diapers that are available in bulk from many commercial laundry companies. I used 2 of these "towels" to nest the guitar. Periodicly spraying a very light mist of Ace Hardware's Lub-E aerosol light oil onto the towels keep the towels ready to wipe the steel down after each use, which not only chases body sweat & oils off of the guitar but also sucks them right up into the towel and evaporates much faster than cloth alone. Ace Lub-E is the only oil I've ever known for sure will not harm any finish or plastics, and actually does a great job as a polish that rejuvenates oils in finishes and plastics; ALTHOUGH, never ever spray or apply any kind of oils onto a guitar finish, but spray moderately onto a rag and use the rag to apply the oil, ...which prevents wet oil from working it's way down through parts and into a guitar's wood which over time can cause problems, especially in screw holes where the oil can turn the wood into mush over time:

Here I insert a special piece of paper impregnated with high tech corrosion inhibitor which emits a gas inside a closed case which bonds to metals and thus inhibits corrosion for about 1000 cycles of opening / closing the case for up to 10 years. I highly suggest keeping this paper in the guitar case for about 5 years before replacing it; It can be put over metals like I have done here, or it can be wadded up and stuck into an empty space in the case to give off it's gas, ...but folding it in the case will only provide the folds exterior surfaces to emith the gas. The paper and it's chemical and gas is guaranteed by the manufacturer to be totally harmless to any material; And the paper is used by countless manufacturers to ship very expensive machinery and parts:

I now put the case in an air-tight plastic bag, roll up the bag on the top of the case to evacuate as much air as feasible and tape the twisted up end closed with masking tape. If the shippers happen to leave the shipping carton out in rain, the guitar and it's case will not suffer. The guitar / case was then placed into a recycled carton and surrounded snugly by styrofoam ghost farts, and the carton taped up air tight. The guitar was then shipped to it's new home & owner who I think will be very happy; I sure would be.